Alexandr Solzhenitsyn on Why the Price of Cowardice Will Only be Evil. ****
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303978304579471440531629198?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEFTTopOpinion&mg=reno64-wsj
From Alexandr Solzhenitsyn’s 1970 Nobel lecture, accepting the prize in literature:
The spirit of Munich has by no means retreated into the past; it was not merely a brief episode. I even venture to say that the spirit of Munich prevails in the 20th century. The timid civilized world has found nothing with which to oppose the onslaught of a sudden revival of barefaced barbarity, other than concessions and smiles. The spirit of Munich is a sickness of the will of successful people, it is the daily condition of those who have given themselves up to the thirst after prosperity at any price, to material well-being as the chief goal of earthly existence. Such people—and there are many in today’s world—elect passivity and retreat, just so as their accustomed life might drag on a bit longer, just so as not to step over the threshold of hardship today—and tomorrow, you’ll see, it will all be all right. (But it will never be all right! The price of cowardice will only be evil; we shall reap courage and victory only when we dare to make sacrifices.)
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